Apple has just activated an iTunes Match toggle button in iOS 5?s Settings app, suggesting that the service will launch in the very near future.

The company announced iTunes Match as its “one more thing,” back at WWDC earlier this year. The service, which requires a $24.99/year subscription, is Apple’s answer to Amazon’s Cloud Player and Google’s Music Beta.

iTunes determines which songs in your collection are available in the iTunes Store. Any music with a match is automatically added to your iCloud library. Since there are more than 20 million songs in the iTunes Store, most of your music is probably already in iCloud. All you have to upload is what iTunes can’t match. Which is much faster than starting from scratch. Once your music is in iCloud, you can stream and store it on any of your devices. Even better, all the music iTunes matches plays back from iCloud at 256-Kbps AAC DRM-free quality — even if your original copy was of lower quality.

Apple has already released iTunes Match for developers, and the service has received positive reviews. Now, the appearance of an “iTunes Match” toggle button in the Settings app of iOS 5 devices suggests that the company is planning on giving the rest of us a taste of the exciting, new service.

The company is also expected to launch a new version of iTunes (10.5.1), which will support iTunes Match.

We’ll let you know when the service becomes available. In the meantime, feel free to share your thoughts on iTunes Match in the comments.